Tag Archives: Family

Today I hugged my nine year old son

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A mom in a shore town here in NJ killed her nine year old son yesterday. My nine year old son was in the room with me when the story came on the local news.

I started tearing up and went over and gave him a hug. I’d been washing dishes and my hands were damp. He let me hug him for a second then squealed “Ah, you’re all wet!”

He started wiggling and squirming around, I laughed and let him go.

He asked “What was that hug for?” We hug each other often. It’s not unusual for him to just wander over for a hug out of the blue, multiple times a day. But he knew, there was something more to this hug.

I didn’t know what to say, so I told him I loved him and sent him off to play.

Blog vs Blog

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I’m going to contribute to both blogs for awhile, see how things go. I don’t have a solid line in my mind as far as what type of post should go where, but basically, I guess, posts that skew toward family stuff would go here, and posts that are more my own interests and take on things will go on banannie.com.

So, to make this more of a family-type post-
Pat’s in Sweden on business again. We chatted for awhile on GTalk, until my connection burped and I couldn’t log back on for about 10 minutes. By then it was late there, he needed to get to bed. I know trans-Atlantic communications are very old tech (anyone else see that docu on tv about the laying of the first trans-Atlantic cable?), but it was still pretty awesome connecting like that, even cooler than talking by phone, I think, but then I prefer chatting and email to the phone in general.

I drove Andy back up to school today. It was nice having him home for a week- but it did point out his need to find employment early and often this summer. A little too much nothin’ to do time. His road test is rescheduled for two weeks from now, so he’ll be back again then!

Tonight it’s early to bed, I think, or maybe I’ll catch up with an episode or two of Heros (I’ve 5 shows behind!)

My new blog is live!

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I stayed up late last night to wrap up the design for my new blog, banannie.

I’m going to keep both blogs active. More on why later- I’ve got a busy day ahead, taking Andy back to school and visiting with my dad, then I have to be back here to get Tim off the bus. Lots of driving, and possibly passengering on the way up if I let Andy take the wheel!

Cranberry Bread

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Mmm, doesn’t that look good?

Tim’s class is having an American Indian celebration today (I guess we’re not teaching them it’s “Native American” anymore?) Each family was asked to make an authentic recipe, and we were assigned cranberry bread (which is, according to the recipe, a “contemporary Iroquois recipe.”)

Sadly, this is not a picture of our cranberry bread, it’s someone else’s cranberry bread that I grabbed off Flickr (thanks, metamerist!) The recipe I have called for a can of whole berry cranberry sauce, liquid drained and reserved. Except there was no liquid when I opened the can- it was just the usual gelled sauce, but with whole cranberries in it. I did the best I could, but it came out a dense, gooey on the inside block. I’m not nearly experienced enough to have a clue how to fix it, and besides, I only had ingredients (and time) for the one batch.

So off to school went Tim with our sad excuse for cranberry bread.

At least I didn’t get stuck making the mutton stew like my friend Sharon!

Better late than…?

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Nick’s helping out at a PTO function tonight, as a last minute fill-in. He and a few fellow Boy Scouts stepped up when the Girl Scouts bagged out at the last minute (I have no idea…)

So, he was asked to arrive at 7:30, and Pat dropped him off at… 7:30. I got a phone call at 7:40 saying they don’t need him till 8. But of course, he’s already there. So I called him and passed on the message anyway. I could hear him rolling his eyes at me over the phone.

Wintry Mix

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It snowed, but not much, and we had about a half inch of slush on the driveway this morning, with clear roads. So I shoved a walking path from the road to the front porch (which the mail carrier & UPS guy ignore as they always walk through the front lawn) and headed out on my day in the car.

Spent about an hour at Andy’s doctor (20 minutes away from here) and an hour at Tim’s (12 or so minutes away.) Had a little lunch, ran a few necessary errands, then zipped up to Ramapo to drop Andy off then back home, about 2 more hours total in the car. Made a few phone calls that couldn’t wait, brewed up a new pot of coffee, supervised Tim doing some homework that should have been done already, and sat here to chill for a half hour before I get dinner thrown together and get ready for a scout pack meeting tonight.

I don’t know how people who do stuff like this daily manage. It makes me appreciate my stay-at-home-ness. I do know that if I drove like this more, I’d need a better car. Ol’ Bessy is hangin’ in there but I was seriously eying the assorted RX330s and even Siennas that were passing me by.

Since I know I have at least a few more of these days ahead (starting, um, Wednesday) I’m thinking maybe I should start haunting the many used pre-loved certified previously owned car lots that have sprung up along the highway.